Refs are bad, mkay

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January 13, 2014 by John

I was doing a bit of washing up last night, my favourite pastime. I can usually cheerily sing along to music from my iPod while scrubbing the dishes but last night I decided to tune in to 5Live and listen to a bit of 606. I flicked the dial, getting soap suds all over the place, and immediately heard a whimpering Stoke City fan sob the words “There is corruption in referees”. It’s been a few months since I last listened to 606, and I instantly remembered why I turned the radio off last time.

I didn’t know the score of the Liverpool v Stoke game. Through the whole 20 minutes of listening to the radio they didn’t mention it. All they spoke about was an apparent big decision and from listening to all callers on the show I understood the following:

• Marc Wilson put his foot on the ground and the resulting vibrations knocked Raheem Sterling off his feet. The referee decided this was a penalty.
• Liverpool won the game solely on the aforementioned decision.
• All Man City fans and players are cheats, especially ones who fake a cruciate ligament injury.
• All referees are scum… subhuman scum.
• Football fans should never be forgiven for booing another team.
• Sorting out all these referee problems is easy.
• We need to get referee repots out in the public.
• Sorting out all these referee problems is really hard.
• Referee reports are really boring.
• Referees should be allowed to just get on with their already difficult job.

I switched the show off thinking three things:

• I really dislike listening to football fans on radio phone-ins.
• I can’t wait to chuckle at the angry Stoke fans when I watch Match of the Day 2’s slow motion replay of this hilarious mistake the ref has made.
• I really should wipe my hands before going from the washing up bowl to dealing with electronics.

I gleefully tuned in to MOTD 2 to witness a fantastic collection of highlights from both games that day. Liverpool beat Stoke 5-3 and Man City beat Newcastle 2-0. Both were fantastic matches, full of passion, great goals and loads of action. The pissing rain in Stoke made it fun to watch drenched players agonising at hitting the post (Crouch, I’m looking at you) and it was all round top entertainment. I suddenly thought back to the radio phone-in and got even more frustrated by it. I was amazed that such a quality, action packed game had such a focus on the referees. Yeah, clearly one decision in the Man City game was really weird, but it’s such a bore. I even think that Sterling was actually fouled.

The debate about dodgy referee’s decisions has been going on forever. Are people not fed up of their own voices yet? It’s amazing how many fans feel that the ref’s one mistake was the sole reason for a defeat. Why do so many people gravitate towards that poor bloke in black/yellow?

If you really do have to talk about refs, then we have to talk about what their limitations are as humans, huffing and puffing about on a football pitch. As far as I’m concerned they are doing the best they can in the way games are currently dealt with. Yes, they’re often wrong, but that’s no bad thing! The odd crazy decision is what football fans live for! I will enjoy taking the piss out of the Newcastle fans for the latest one and I will endure it when Sunderland get a player sent off for farting. It is part of the football fan package.

When Darren Bent scored in off the beach ball, when Suarez bit Ivanovic and didn’t get sent off (then went on to score the last minute equaliser), when Osman got a penalty for falling over the grass and managed to draw level against Sunderland… they are all part of the excitement and weirdness that makes the game great. They shouldn’t be seen as bad things, they are just things that happen in football. They happen to every team (I can’t stand people who say it only happens to certain teams) and simply make life interesting.

Lots of the fans on the radio show were talking about reviewing decisions on screens. Yeah, that might work in a few weird decisions (including Tiote’s wonder goal), but the game is such that absolutely loads of things can be happening all at once. Imagine a corner or set piece near the box. If someone gets a slight nudge and then the captain of the team asks for a review on a TV screen, no matter what decision is given you’ll still be able to phone up Ian Wright and have a good old grumble about how shit the ‘third umpire’ is.

I think the only way we could have really appeased the fans in the case of Wilson vs Sterling is if mid-game we mathematically deduct how much pressure Wilson put on Sterling and conclude according to Sterling’s weight, momentum, centre of gravity and area of contact if he was forced to fall or if he could have stayed on his feet. It’s either that or we rely on a human decision which might get it wrong. I know what I’d go for. (Clearly I’d opt for the maths, because if we were able to calculate that kind of sum we must have become be so technologically advanced we could come up several solutions for sorting out other such worldly issues).

You could chat forever about the ins and outs of both of these particular games. Henderson making an impact at the top of the league, Hart making some super saves showing why he’s back in the team, Crouch scoring the first headed goal for Stoke this season – what’s changed there… etc. Yeah, mention the bad ref decisions, they’re part of the game, but get over it. He was probably offside anyway*.

*Lol.